Heritage of Napa Valley

Originally the Wappo Indians were the sole inhabitants of the Napa Valley. In 1823 Don Frances Castro and Father Jose Altimura, under armed escort of Jose Sanchez were the first Europeans to explore the Napa Valley. Guy Fling, the first American to enter the valley in the late 1820’s returned with the valley’s first settler George C. Yount. Over the ensuing years much changed in the picturesque valley and in 1849 Napa County is formed as one of California’s original counties. In 1852 Jakob Schram bought some hillside property south of Calistoga. He hired Chinese workers that returned from the early gold rush days back to the valley to plant and cultivate vines under the supervision of his wife. In 1858 a silver rush occurs in the Napa Valley and more Chinese and Italian immigrants return to find work. The same year Charles Krug produces the first 1,200 gallons of wine in the Napa Valley using a small cider press.

Samuel Brannan, one of California’s early pioneers visited the finest spas in Europe and wanted people from San Francisco to receive first class treatment at his spa, named Calistoga.  He and another pioneer Nathan Coombs opened a stage coach line to bring the wealthy to Calistoga following their steamship trip from San Francisco to Vallejo. However, the coaches drawn by six horses took too long and the trip was anything but enjoyable resulting in Brannan starting the first railroad from Vallejo to Calistoga in 1864. The tracks were built by immigrants with many of them having worked on the railroads in Europe, Asia and America. The first steam engine was properly named Calistoga and the first visitors arrived in the most northern part in 1868 following the completion of the tracks. There were numerous stops along the way for people to disembark and start enjoying the beauty of the bustling valley. The St. Helena Viticultural Club was organized in 1875 with Charles Krug as the first president. Two years later Frederick and Jakob Beringer arrived to establish Beringer Bros. Winery.

In 1885 the tracks were leased to the Southern Pacific Railroad and soon thereafter Napa Valley became connected with Suisun City. In 1898 they were purchased by Southern Pacific, modernized in order to use the rail to move materials from the mines and bulk wine from the early wineries to the Bay area along with the passengers. In 1905 the line was electrified and renamed San Francisco, Napa and Calistoga Railway. With the arrival of cars and the decline of passengers they seized the operation for passengers in 1929 and continued to use the tracks for another 58 years until 1987 to move goods in and out of the Napa Valley. In the 1950’s with the arrival of commercial trucking most wineries started to ship their finished wines on trucks to the market place. As a result the rail tanks for the wine industry became a thing of the past well before the American consumers started to get a thirst for Napa Valley wines over the ensuing years.